The Southeast Veterans Service Center, which provides shelter and services to homeless veterans, is expanding its capicity, including for the first-time beds for women vets.

"There is a population of women veterans that need to be served as well and we wanted to try and assist them," said Tamara Carter, executive assistant to the program director.

The $1 million annex, which will nearly double the capacity, was funded in part by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through the local Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, and the Veterans Administration Grant Per Diem program.

It will add beds for 32 men and 16 women and is expected to open in July.

Program Director Greg Crawford said he saw a need for more housing for homeless veterans, including a large influx of service members returning from Iraq. Women especially, he said, find there are few places to go.

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, there are up to 200,000 homeless veterans on any given day, making up about one-third of all homeless adults. Around 3% of homeless veterans are women.

Former D.C. City Council member H.R. Crawford founded the Southeast Veterans Service Center (SEVSC) in the late 1970s after residents asked him to remove homeless people living under a Georgetown bridge.

When Crawford arrived, he was surprised to find that they had rigged sufficient electricity to cook dinner, which they invited Crawford to share with them. As they ate, Crawford discovered that many of them were veterans who had fallen into homelessness after their service.

Although he did have to evict his hosts, Crawford's encounter pushed him to create Access Housing Inc., which operates the nonprofit center.

SEVSC, located in Anacostia, provides both permanent and transitional housing, as well as a drop-in day center. Clients receive mental health and medical care, benefits counseling, job training, legal assistance, housing referrals and other services.

Veterans in transitional housing, which lasts from six months to a year, agree not to use alcohol or drugs and follow a structured program that includes workshops and counseling. "We really try to provide them everything that will assist them to be able to matriculate back into society," Carter said.

Many clients grapple with post-traumatic stress and substance abuse, Carter said. Mental illness afflicts almost half of homeless veterans, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and more than 70% of homeless veterans abuse drugs or alcohol.

The center, which has 50 beds, currently houses about 30 men who have served in almost every American conflict in the past four decades.

"It's a mixture," Carter said. "It's people from as far back as Vietnam. We don't have any World War II vets here, but from Vietnam on to the present war."

Henry Monroe, 58, developed a drug habit and became homeless after leaving the Army in 1970. When a 2005 assault left him with a broken jaw, he had surgery at a VA hospital, then spent three months in an inpatient program in Martinsburg, W. Va. before being referred to SEVSC.

"When I got here I had about four months of clean time, so I was still relatively new to that particular activity, trying to stay clean," Monroe said. "I also was diagnosed with manic bipolar, and I'm schizoaffective. So I was taking quite a bit of medication, and being in a new place and being under so many rules, I didn't do too well the first couple of weeks."

Monroe was almost asked to leave, he said, because he wasn't conforming to the policies and procedures.

"I just went to my room one day and I sat here and I thought about everything," he said. "And I decided that I needed to turn my program around, my behavior and everything."

Monroe got into a VA partial hospitalization program to monitor and adjust his medications, also taking advantage of the services at SEVSC. He left the center in November after 14 months and now lives in his own apartment.

"Just about everything a veteran needs is provided for them here at Southeast Veterans Service Center," he said. "If you get up in here and you work the program the way the program says to be worked, then you should have no problems in your recovery and being able to leave here in a different capacity than the way you came."

Andrew Gallagher, a Navy veteran who served in the Gulf War, also went through the Martinsburg drug program. From there, he stayed at the New York Avenue men's shelter before arriving at SEVCS, where he has been in transitional housing for the past six months.

"It's a good place to be," said Gallagher, 36. "They're assisting me with housing. I don't do good in those shelters. They're assisting me in looking for another place to stay. And it's just a safe atmosphere."

Gallagher, the second-youngest resident at SEVCS, said he gets along well with the older veterans.

"[There is] one guy younger than me, he just came out of Iraq," he said. "So he and I, you know, we kind of hit it off. But the rest of the guys, there's just an understanding amongst us, even though they're older. Certain things we all automatically understand."

Veterans increasingly have to rely on each other for support, Gallagher said.

"They used to tell the veterans where everything was," he said. "Now you have to find out on your own. There are programs there, and there's stuff there for you, but nobody's going to tell you. You have to get it from another vet."

Monroe also said that living with other veterans helped him reach his goals.

"The problems that you was having on the street, there's always somebody here ahead of you that's had the same problems," he said. "And they're able to sit down with you and talk you through it."